Early Tesla storage executive Jaramillo to leave company after 7 years

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Dive Brief:

Mateo Jaramillo, vice president at Tesla Energy and one of the early members of the company’s stationary storage effort, is leaving Tesla after seven years, various media sources report.

Jaramillo became director of Tesla Energy in 2014 and turned his attention to stationary energy storage.

Jaramillo’s departure from the company is unrelated to the recent shake-up at Tesla Energy, Eletrek reports.

Dive Insight:

Tesla’s energy storage division has been working through personnel changes over the past several months ahead of the merger with SolarCity. But Electrek reports that Jaramillo’s departure is unrelated to any recent shake-up at Tesla Energy.

Electrek suggests Jaramillo’s just wants a break from Tesla’s high pressure business climate that CEO Elon Musk once compared to being in the Special Forces.

Jaramillo’s tenure coincided with a dramatic ramping up of energy storage capacity at Tesla with the building and start-up of a gigafactory for batteries in Nevada and more recent plans for a big battery factory in Europe.

Jaramillo was often the visible face of Tesla’s stationary storage efforts, frequently speaking at industry conferences. And over the last year, he has focused on the regulatory and political aspects of the energy storage business.

Some of those functions could be taken over by former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff, who in April became SolarCity’s chief policy officer.